


Drowning

by StarlightAurate



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Original Character(s), Pokemon, Team Aqua - Freeform, Team Magma (Pokemon)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29939406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAurate/pseuds/StarlightAurate
Summary: Team Aqua is everything Maressa had dreamed: she and her Pokemon get to fight together for the sake of oceanic restoration! But a run-in with Team Magma leaves her shaken, and as time goes on and Maressa continues to witness Team Aqua's actions, she begins to lose faith in her team's good will.





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is a fic that I began writing nearly eight years ago. I've posted it on a few forums and decided to bring it here! It has recently undergone a thorough rewriting but the plot and characters are all the same. I want to thank everyone who has stuck around with me over the years and has read this, critiqued this and encouraged me to keep trying and do my best. 
> 
> This fic uses the ORIGINAL Team Aqua/Team Magma uniform designs and character designs are from the anime. So Shelly has curly red hair, Maxie doesn't have glasses, etc. I also took inspiration from the manga and Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald games when writing this. Enjoy!

_I should have been a pair of ragged claws  
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas._

The storm raged endlessly. Lightning sparked in mile-high clouds, throwing their black depths into sharp relief before the skies succumbed to darkness once more. The heavens tore open, sending sheets of rain down upon the turbulent seas.

In the roaring waters, a wooden ship plowed through the salty sea, miniscule in comparison to the endless abyss. Men on board raced to and fro, hauling buckets of water, desperately grabbing hold of lines, tying objects down, trying to control the sails. Three men stood together at the wheel in an attempt to prevent the ship from spinning out of control. 

Black walls of water raged higher and higher; each new monstrous wave crashed down only to be replaced by one bigger than itself. The waves fell, retreated, and returned more powerful and numerous than ever before. Fighting to stay afloat was akin to fighting a hydra: the more progress they appeared to make, the more hopeless the situation became.

At last, as the ship fell into a trough, as rains lashed the bulwarks, as the faces of every sailor looked up in terror at the wall of water looming over them, highlighted by a burst of lightning, they gave in. The men at the wheel let go: the ship spun, capsizing, and a second later was completely submerged as the wave slammed down on it.

The fragments of the magnificent ship and its passengers all descended into the calmness of the deep, the latest victims of the thirsty storm.

_We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  
Till human voices wake us,  
And we drown._

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“No, Golduck, careful—no—OW!”

Maressa jerked back as Golduck wolfed down a piece of dried jerky in her hand—he had reached too far and snapped his bill over her fingers. 

“Be more careful!” she snapped at him as he eagerly snapped up the food.

“Maressa, you okay?”

Maressa turned her head to see her teammate, Sarah, striding over to her.

“Yeah, my Golduck just nipped my fingers a bit hard.”

Golduck rolled his eyes and quacked something—Maressa couldn’t quite hear what. Even though he didn’t speak with words the same way that humans did, he and Maressa had been together for so long that she perfectly understood his every mannerism and quack.

Sarah sat down next to Maressa. The estuarine waters rippled beneath the moonlight; the tiny submarine they sat on lay motionlessly in the gentle flow. Sarah straightened her blue Team Aqua bandanna as she gazed at Golduck.

“Do you always keep your Pokemon out of his Pokeball?”

“Not always, but it’s nice to have someone to hang out with—especially when our job is to _literally do nothing_ ,” she announced with a glare at the empty area. A few Vigoroth swung from the nearby trees surrounding the banks, but aside from that, the night was totally silent.

“Well,” Sarah said, “keeping watch is referred to as grunt work for a reason!” Taking a Pokeball out of her pocket, she looked at it thoughtfully. “It’d be nice to hang out with my Sealeo more.”

“Why don’t you bring him out? I’m sure my Pokemon would love to meet him!”

“He prefers colder areas, and whenever I bring him out somewhere warm like this, he gets really uncomfortable quickly.”

Maressa nodded. “That makes sense—sorry to hear that, though.”

“King! Seaking!”

The two women looked at the waters and saw a large Seaking poking his head above the surface, bobbing in the gentle ebb of the river. 

“Oh, hey, Seaking!” Maressa said. “Want to meet Sarah? She’s one of my teammates!” Maressa smiled at Sarah. “Seaking _loves_ attention—you can go ahead and pat him! He’d be really happy if you talked to him, too.”

Scooting closer to the edge of the submarine, Sarah reached out a shaky hand and patted Seaking’s scaly head. Sure enough, Seaking closed his eyes and fluttered his fins happily; Sarah’s tentative smile tuned into an adoring one.

“For something so big and scaly, he’s really endearing!”

Maressa smiled proudly. “Yep. Not the most confident Seaking yet, but we’re getting there. Hey, Seaking, where are Sharpedo and Lanturn, huh?”

As with Golduck, Maressa had grown to understand her other Pokemon and what they told her. Seaking swam in a few circles while chirping—Sharpedo and Lanturn were still hanging out underwater, but they weren’t far!

“Hey, what’s going on—woah, it’s a party up here!”

Maressa and Sarah turned to see a tan woman with long brown hair emerge from the submarine hatch.

“Hey, Cloe,” Sarah said with a smile. “What’s up?”

“Nothing— _literally nothing _is going on down there. How about up here?”__

____

____

“Same,” Maressa said as she ripped up a strip of dried jerky and threw it at Golduck—he tried to catch it but missed and it smacked him in the face. He glared at her.

“You guys got your Pokemon out? Come on, Corsola, join the fun!”

Cloe took out a Pokeball, and a blue and pink spiny Pokemon emerged.

“Corsola!” she chirped happily before scuttling into the water on her short legs.

Sarah frowned. “Isn’t brackish water bad for Corsola?”

“Only if I leave her in there all day—she’ll be fine if it’s just a few hours,” Cloe said as she laid back on the submarine, looking up at the moonlit sky.

“And won’t Commander Shelly noticed that you’ve disappeared?”

Cloe waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing is happening down there, anyway. They’re supposed to be running tests on the water quality, flow, sedimentation, yada yada—but there’s about four people running them. There are too many of us and not enough things to do, so Shelly is having all of us clean the ship. There’s no way she’ll notice if one of us leaves for a bit.”

Maressa laid down next to Cloe and sighed. “I can’t wait to finally go on a real assignment!”

Cloe’s face lit up. “Oh yeah? Where are you going after this?”

“Mt. Chimney,” Maressa said with a proud smile. “Shelly said she’s really happy with my battling ability—”

Quack! Golduck cut her off.

“… _Our_ battling ability. She wants to take us on a real mission!”

“So cool!” Sarah said. “What are you going to do?”

Maressa frowned and shrugged. “I dunno. Apparently there was a recent meteorite landing, and Shelly says Team Aqua can use it—I don’t know what for, but she wants us to get it first and put it to good use.”

“Who else would be after a meteorite?”

“Maybe some nerds who like to study rocks. Shelly’s also worried about Team Magma going after it.”

Sarah grimaced as if she had smelled something nasty. “Those people who just want to dry up the oceans?”

“Yeah,” Maressa spat. “I hope we don’t run into them… Although it’d be kinda fun to get the chance to get in a real Pokemon battle! Not just a training simulation like we do all the time here.”

Cloe, who had been watching her Corsola splash around with Maressa’s Seaking, turned her head to Maressa. “You and your Pokemon really enjoy battling, huh?”

“Yep!” Maressa said proudly as her Golduck glanced at her. “It’s all this guy is good for, anyway—HEY!”

She spat as Golduck shot a blast of water at her. Her blonde hair hung lankly around her face as she glared at Golduck, who gazed back at her smugly with his bill sticking high in the air.

“Why would you say that about your Golduck?” Cloe asked.

“I don’t mean it—and you know that!” she shot at Golduck as he stared cheekily back at her. “You wouldn’t have hung around me for _nineteen freaking years_ and followed me to Hoenn if I only battled with you!”

Sarah started. “Nineteen years? I wasn’t even allowed to have a Pokemon nineteen yeas ago!”

Maressa averted her eyes. “Well, I wasn’t, either… But we worked around it… without really telling anyone.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she said in response to Sarah’s and Cloe’s doubtful stares. “When I was four years old, I came across Psyduck and we became friends—I wasn’t allowed to have Pokemon yet, so I just saw him whenever I played outside. Once I was old enough, I caught him, my family moved from Kanto to Hoenn, and now we’re here. That’s not _bad_ —we’re all Team Aqua members, and you guys know this organization isn’t legal!”

“That’s true,” Cloe said, “but Team Aqua isn’t bad, either—oceanic conservation without government regulations and stopping Team Magma isn’t exactly ‘bad.’”

Wiping water out of her eyes, Maressa asked, “So where are you guys going next?”

“Slateport Museum!” Cloe said. “I’m going in as a volunteer during the day, seeing what data they already have on water flow, oceanic currents and sediments—seeing what data already exists so we don’t have to measure it, y’know?”

“That’s cool! I was hired into Team Aqua after they saw I studied ocean currents in college—I really liked math and calculus, so I looked into how they worked and all that.”

“Neat! I’m a math person, too. Are they having you battle instead because they need more battlers?”

Maressa shrugged. “I guess. They saw my training simulations with all my Pokemon, told me it was good, asked how I felt about primarily doing Pokemon battles, and all of my Pokemon were cool with it.” She looked up at Sarah. “What about you? If I’m going to Mt. Chimney and Cloe’s going to Slateport, where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet. Shelly told me that she might transfer me to Matt’s squad, so we’ll see how that goes.” 

Golduck slithered from the submarine into the estuary to join the other Pokemon. The three grunts sat quietly for a moment, gazing out at the dark waters that rippled with liquid moonlight. 

Sarah smiled thoughtfully. “This reminds me of growing up in Mossdeep: when I was a kid, my friends and I used to go sit at the cliffs and watch the Wailmer come out of the water. We called it Wailmer Watching.”

“What’s Mossdeep like? I’ve never been there!”

“It’s beautiful! We’ve got sandy beaches, mangrove forests, and rocky tidepools. Every year, we have a festival for the Millennium Comet, and it’s actually coming this year! It’s a week-long celebration of singing, dancing, and having a ton of food and drink!” The dreamy smile soon faded from her face. “Too bad I have to miss it.”

“You can’t get off work?!”

“No,” she said sadly. “I asked Commander Shelly, and she said that Team Aqua has to be a priority.”

“Well, Shelly can take her priorities and shove them up—”

Maressa was cut off by the sound of the hatch opening. A woman wearing a blue bandanna with bushy red hair emerged from the submarine. Her red eyes were narrowed with displeasure, she slightly held her chin up, and a haughty air hung about her.

“Is Cloe up here?” Commander Shelly asked.

“Crap!” Cloe hissed.

“What are you all doing?” the Commander demanded as she walked onto the deck, her hands on her hips. “ _You_ —” she jabbed a finger at Cloe— “are supposed to be inside, cleaning the windows! And _you_ two—" she pointed to Maressa and Sarah— "are supposed to be on watch! Tell me, how are you watching _anything_ when you are lying on your backs?”

The three grunts immediately leapt to their feet.

“There’s no one out here,” Maressa said hastily, “and besides, my Pokemon have been scouting the waters, and they say they haven’t seen anyone!”

Shelly raised an eyebrow.

“Really?”

Maressa turned her head and her heart sank when she saw Golduck and Corsola wrestling with Seaking. Corsola clung to Seaking’s horn, yipping like a cowgirl as Seaking bucked up and down; Golduck had his arms wrapped as far around Seaking as they would go, trying to hold on while Seaking vigorously tried to shake them off.

Shelly let out a hiss (maybe it was supposed to be a sigh) as Cloe and Maressa recalled their Pokemon into their Pokeballs.

“Just because you’re going out on missions soon doesn’t mean you can slack off. Being a Team Aqua member demands a lot of responsibility!”

“Yes, Commander Shelly,” the three of them said reluctantly.

She nodded. “Cloe, into the submarine.”

With a glance of terror at the other grunts, Cloe did as she was told.

“Sarah, go in with her, too. I want to talk to Maressa for a moment.”

Maressa’s stomach knotted. This wasn’t good.

As Sarah walked away, Maressa desperately wanted to cling to her and beg her to stay so she didn’t have to listen to Shelly all by herself—

But Sarah soon disappeared into the submarine, too.

The Commander sighed. “Maressa, I’m very disappointed in you.

“We have a lot of hope for you, you know. I’m taking you with me to Mt. Chimney tomorrow because I believe you can handle it. I’ve seen the way your Pokemon fight, and I know you say that you care about the ocean—but you have to prove it. We didn’t find out about the meteorite on our own; it was through a spy we have on Team Magma. They’re going after that meteorite, so we are, too.”

Maressa’s stomach dropped.

“We _will_ fight Team Magma tomorrow, Maressa. And you need to prove that you and your Pokemon are willing to work hard for Team Aqua. Standing out here on watch is easy. If I can’t trust you with a simple task like that, how can I trust you to do something that carries as much weight as a Pokemon battle?

“There may be a point where your loyalty is tested. If you want to be a member of Team Aqua, you must be willing to _fight_ for it.”

Maressa bowed her head slightly as a trickle of shame bled into her heart.

“Yes, Commander Shelly. I’m sorry. I promise you, we’ll work hard from now on—we won’t let Team Aqua down.”

Shelly nodded. “Good.

“Now give me fifty push-ups.”

“WHAT?!”

The Commander stared back impassively at Maressa’s open-mouthed shock.

“I didn’t stutter. Searching Mt. Chimney is physical work. You want to prove you’re capable, don’t you?

“Fifty push-ups. Now.”

Maressa pursed her lips in anger—her disdain for Shelly growing ever stronger. She didn’t need to prove she was physically capable of hiking Mt. Chimney—the training simulations had already proven that! She swam four-hundred meters in the open ocean for her dive test; she had run up and down the muddy hillsides of Route 119; she had done free-diving with her Pokemon to more than twenty meters—

And now she needed to prove herself?

Maressa closed her eyes. She wouldn’t let her anger get the better of her—this time. Getting on her hands and feet, she steadily did push-ups while Shelly stood over her. Expending energy usually calmed her down—but as her chest and biceps burned, so did her resentment.

At dawn—Sean and Casey were supposed to relieve her and Sarah at 3 AM but missed their watch—she clambered down into the submarine hatch and sat on her cot, all four of her Pokemon recalled into their Pokeballs.

As she lay on the bed, weariness overtook her, clouding her mind with the bliss of restful sleep. Her upper body was still tender from doing push-ups—but she was excited for what the next day would bring. Recovering and researching a meteorite! Fighting Team Magma! She smiled, a single thought running through her head:

_This will all be worth it in the end._


End file.
